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Cher Slams Wendy Williams After Mocking Joaquin Phoenix's Cleft Lip

Taylor Sakellis

Updated September 7, 2021

Wendy Williams has been trending for her comments regarding actor Joaquin Phoenix's cleft lip.

In case you haven't seen it, here's the clip from the "Wendy Williams" show last week that's been going viral:

Though the segment started with Wendy saying she found him "oddly attractive", the way she talked about it struck a nerve.

Wikimedia | https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cleft_Lip_Repair.png

It includes Wendy using her finger to hold her lip and mimic a cleft while talking.

Twitter quickly exploded with outrage, particularly those with cleft lips or palettes, or children with them.

One of the most vocal was Canadian football player Adam Bighill.

Not only was Adam born with a cleft lip that needed surgery to fix, but his son Beau has one too.

A few days after the segment, Beau had his big day.

By that point, Bighill had given multiple interviews about why Wendy's actions were hurtful, but she still hadn't apologized.

After Twitter exploded with upset and outrage, Wendy tweeted out an apology directly to Bighill.

She also included words for the cleft community as a whole, but did not apologize to Joaquin Phoenix.

Bighill thanked Wendy for the apology and forgave her.

Also, Beau's surgery went well and he's recovering just fine.

But not everyone was satisfied.

Many people felt Wendy's apology was too little, too late.

This includes music icon, Cher, who took to Twitter to express her frustrations.

"My mom taught me to love & help people in pain. Who are you?! U should be fired!" she wrote.

When someone tweeted that she had apologized, Cher responded: "APOLOGIZED. THERE IS NO APOLOGY FOR WHAT SHE DID…. & LAUGHED ABOUT!! I KNOW THESE CHILDREN,& ADULTS.THEY GO THROUGH HELL,THEIR PARENTS GO THROUGH HEL!! Fk Her Apology. SHE WANTS TO KEEP HER JOB!! I CANT CONTAIN MY ANGER!!"

"Does an apology make up for this?" she tweeted with a side-by-side of Wendy holding up her lip next to Joaquin.

Cher then retweeted a fan's tweet showing the Hollywood legend with children in the cleft community.

"THESE ARE THE PPL @WendyWilliams IS MAKING FUN OF. Joaquin Phoenix was a Child,& We Dont Know What He Had To Go Through. HE IS ONE OF THE GREAT ACTORS OF OUR TIME,MAGNETIC,& MORE THAN HANDSOME‼️SHE WILL BE JUDGED FOR THIS FOREVER," Cher responded.